Carl Bilgrien

Michigan State University (MSU) is a public research university located in East Lansing, Michigan, United States and is the first land-grant institution that was created to serve as a model for future land-grant colleges in the country under the 1862 Morrill Act. Michigan State has been labeled one of the "Public Ivies," a publicly funded university considered as providing a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League. Following the introduction of the Morrill Act, the college became coeducational and expanded its curriculum beyond agriculture. Today, MSU is the ninth-largest university in the United States, with 47,800 students and 2,954 faculty members.

The University of Florida (commonly referred to as Florida or UF) is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a 2,000-acre (8.1 km2) campus in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906. The University of Florida is ranked 14th overall among all public national universities in the 2014 U.S. News & World Report rankings, and has ranked within the top 100 universities worldwide. The University of Florida was also described as a "Public Ivy" in the book The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities.